1 hour ago, YABO713 said:

FWIW, Europe has some awful and sprawling suburbs as well... not as bad as ours but still not great. The difference is, though, that most of those suburbs are still reached by train or decent public transit. 

 

Philadelphia is a great example of how that could actually work here. My coworker lives on the Main Line in Philly, in what can only be described as "sprawl", but walks .7 miles every morning to the train station to head into work. 

And that’s how it should be.

40 minutes ago, mrCharlie said:

 

We've "browsed" for houses on and off since the kid was born, mostly just open houses. Our current 3BR 1776 sq ft house is in perfect location right in town and we love it overall, but it was built in 1906 so storage is minimal, and we have the usual old house maintenance. The downstairs is divided into multiple smallish rooms, which means some go underutilized while others are crammed.

When we bought our house, I definitely had the "new houses are junk" mentality because most of the ones we saw in our preferred price/size range were indeed low quality, despite their often more usable layouts. Now that we have some more flexibility on what we can afford, we have found well-built newer houses do actually exist. Problem is they are usually twice the size of our current house, not even including finished basements. Maybe justifiable if an older parent were to join our household at some point, but feels excessive otherwise.

Plus, most of the quality newer houses are in 1990s-2000s yuppie boomer neighborhoods with HOAs and manicured lawns, and a majority of residents we don't agree with politically. I think the only exceptions were in Gahanna and Worthington. Still too big though.

 

I despise HOAs.

3 hours ago, mrCharlie said:

 

We've "browsed" for houses on and off since the kid was born, mostly just open houses. Our current 3BR 1776 sq ft house is in perfect location right in town and we love it overall, but it was built in 1906 so storage is minimal, and we have the usual old house maintenance. The downstairs is divided into multiple smallish rooms, which means some go underutilized while others are crammed.

When we bought our house, I definitely had the "new houses are junk" mentality because most of the ones we saw in our preferred price/size range were indeed low quality, despite their often more usable layouts. Now that we have some more flexibility on what we can afford, we have found well-built newer houses do actually exist. Problem is they are usually twice the size of our current house, not even including finished basements. Maybe justifiable if an older parent were to join our household at some point, but feels excessive otherwise.

Plus, most of the quality newer houses are in 1990s-2000s yuppie boomer neighborhoods with HOAs and manicured lawns, and a majority of residents we don't agree with politically. I think the only exceptions were in Gahanna and Worthington. Still too big though.

Moved from Ohio City to Broadview Hts in September - 1,800 SF 3B3B built in 1900, had many of the same concerns you did. Our new home is larger than we anticipated we'd buy, but it's worked well.

 

Re: the political differences, I think you'd be shocked. The conservatives in the burbs are just louder lol, my precinct is historically conservative and was 51/49 Trump in November. 

Most traditional Columbus suburbs are now blue except Grove City. But now places like Circleville, Delaware City and Lancaster have been added to the suburb list which changes things a little. 

45 minutes ago, GCrites said:

Most traditional Columbus suburbs are now blue except Grove City. But now places like Circleville, Delaware City and Lancaster have been added to the suburb list which changes things a little. 

Delaware county is even pushing purple now, it will be interesting to see where it goes in 4 years. 

2 hours ago, YABO713 said:

Moved from Ohio City to Broadview Hts in September - 1,800 SF 3B3B built in 1900, had many of the same concerns you did. Our new home is larger than we anticipated we'd buy, but it's worked well.

 

Re: the political differences, I think you'd be shocked. The conservatives in the burbs are just louder lol, my precinct is historically conservative and was 51/49 Trump in November. 

 

1 hour ago, GCrites said:

Most traditional Columbus suburbs are now blue except Grove City. But now places like Circleville, Delaware City and Lancaster have been added to the suburb list which changes things a little. 

 

I keep telling myself the extra space probably won't matter too since it will still probably cost less to heat and cool than the current house. It's better sealed now, but the energy audit we had done a few years back included a blower door test. Essentially, they seal a strong fan across the front entrance and measure airflow to see how tight the building is. A first for the crew running the test, the now-gone wall-to-wall carpet in our upstairs bedroom ballooned off the ground several inches during the test.

At this point we're not in a big hurry to move, unless something changes it will mostly revolves around my wife's job (since I WfH). I'm not entirely opposed to a purple neighborhood as long as there is some sense of community, amenities like sidewalks, and they value public education.

 

 

Edited January 24Jan 24 by mrCharlie

3 minutes ago, mrCharlie said:

At this point we're not in a big hurry to move, unless something changes it will mostly revolves around my wife's job (since I WfH). I'm not entirely opposed to a purple neighborhood as long as there is some sense of community, amenities like sidewalks, and they value public education.

 

 

 

 

Funny you say that - the thing that sold me on our house was 1) HOA pool where most people gather frequently in the summers, and 2), we have sidewalk access from our home directly to a) the rec center, and b) the local shopping center that includes restaurants, ice cream, and the Aldi we go to. 

5 hours ago, GCrites said:

 

I despise HOAs.

 

One of my favorite scenes in "Tulsa King" was when the HOA dweeb autodefecated on learning who Dwight was.

Everyone talks about how much they hate HOAs, yet they seem to be more prevalent than ever. I wonder if it's one or all three of the following factors-

 

1. Township/municipalities effectively require them for new developments 

2. It's easier to get financing if there's an HOA

3. There's a silent majority of people who actually like HOAs

3 hours ago, thomasbw said:

. There's a silent majority of people who actually like HOAs

Funny how people living in those developments "WaNT ThERe FrEEdum," but impose their will on their neighbors.   

 

 After driving through a few of those exurban HOA type places, i imagine you might get a citation for not having a big enough pickup truck in the driveway.     

No Punisher sticker?  $50 fine.  

 

No Oakley sunglasses on your forehead?   Probation plus counseling. 

Yep, cities are awesome.

39 minutes ago, KJP said:

Yep, cities are awesome.

I don't disagree with you in principle, @KJP and in some ways I'm still very bummed about moving to suburbia... but I've actually been shocked at my cost of living here... I know this is anecdotal and not data (and I'm not arguing that the data wouldn't support your position), but the only cost that's went up for me is my mortgage. Though, again, I'm sacrificing convenience in that I'm really only able to walk to the nearest commercial business district April - October, whereas I could previously walk year-round. These are just some selected points to highlight my position - again, not arguing with your overall point, though.

Gym

Ohio City: $94/mo

Broadview Hts: $27/mo rec center ($7 to add my wife)

Transportation

Ohio City: Gas + RTA passes ~ $175/mo

Broadview Hts: Gas ~ $150/mo

Groceries

Same at both - loyal Aldi and WSM family

Utilities

About 8% more in Broadview Heights in total

Children's activities (daycare, classes, leagues, etc.)

Down about 14% YOY despite my daughter joining 2 new activities.

On 1/24/2025 at 8:02 AM, YABO713 said:

FWIW, Europe has some awful and sprawling suburbs as well... not as bad as ours but still not great. The difference is, though, that most of those suburbs are still reached by train or decent public transit. 

 

Philadelphia is a great example of how that could actually work here. My coworker lives on the Main Line in Philly, in what can only be described as "sprawl", but walks .7 miles every morning to the train station to head into work. 

"Sprawl" in Europe probably wouldn't fit the same definition as it does in the US as a result. Is TOD sprawl?

Also that graphic seems to be conflating necessary costs with city spending per household. I.e. much of this can be probably be explained by suburbs being richer on average and being able to spend more per household. After all, what does cultural spending have to do with suburban style urban planning? Even police and fire spending may have more to do with revenue than costs. (I.e many big cities have underfunded/understaffed police forces, and many suburbs have over funded police forces).

Not that there aren't real cost differences, roads, bussing, etc, but this graphic is likely overselling the point. Plus taxes are the ultimate judge. If it truly and meaningfully costs more to administer a town with suburban form, taxes will be reliably and predictably higher in suburban areas.

@YABO713 your transportation costs are dramatically underestimated. You're far from the only one who does this, however. The IRS driving deductibility and AAA average driving cost, etc. capture the true costs of driving a car that you own.

When I lived in Geauga County 30+ years ago, I regularly drove at least 20,000 miles per year (or $14,000+ in today's dollars). After I moved to Lakewood, and especially after I started working from home in 2008, my driving dropped to well below 10,000 miles per year ($5,000-6,000 per year).

1 hour ago, YABO713 said:

I don't disagree with you in principle, @KJP and in some ways I'm still very bummed about moving to suburbia... but I've actually been shocked at my cost of living here... I know this is anecdotal and not data (and I'm not arguing that the data wouldn't support your position), but the only cost that's went up for me is my mortgage. Though, again, I'm sacrificing convenience in that I'm really only able to walk to the nearest commercial business district April - October, whereas I could previously walk year-round. These are just some selected points to highlight my position - again, not arguing with your overall point, though.

Gym

Ohio City: $94/mo

Broadview Hts: $27/mo rec center ($7 to add my wife)

Transportation

Ohio City: Gas + RTA passes ~ $175/mo

Broadview Hts: Gas ~ $150/mo

Groceries

Same at both - loyal Aldi and WSM family

Utilities

About 8% more in Broadview Heights in total

Children's activities (daycare, classes, leagues, etc.)

Down about 14% YOY despite my daughter joining 2 new activities.

I could be wrong but I feel as though the diagram isn't trying to say that on an individual level cost of living is higher for everyone in suburbia. Its more trying to say that on a macro level the drain on funds of a suburb is significantly higher due to the lack of density to pay for it.

For example I have family in Willoughby hills where its required for each household to be on a minimum 1 acre lot. All the water lines, electrical, sewers, roads, services etc needed to just support 1 house is significant. There would be no way for that household to fund that amount of infrastructure and therefore why suburbs are heavily subsidized. The only reason the cost of living isn't significantly higher in these suburbs is because they are subsidized. Compare that to all the housing buildings that only take up a couple acres or less that house hundreds of people each on the near west side.

I find the argument that density reduces cost to the local municipality easy to follow and logically compelling. That said, I find it to consistently clash with observed reality. If this theory was meaningfully true, we should expect to see it reflected in the tax burden placed on those households. Either it's not true, or the effect is just too small to matter compared with other factors. I explored this a bit deeper in the quoted post.

On 2/22/2024 at 3:05 PM, Ethan said:

I understand the theory. Given that theory, one should expect rural and suburban areas to have higher tax rates than urban areas, at least once they reach maturity. However, we not only don't see this in reality, we see the opposite. Rural areas have lower tax rates across the board than suburban areas which have lower tax rates than urban areas. 

 

 

 

(Pre Cleveland increasing to 2.5%)

 

I can't find a good map for municipal income tax rates, the above is the best I could find, but from what I can tell the trend is less clear, but it still tilts in the same direction as the other taxes. 

 

If the argument is that the suburbs haven't reached infrastructural maturity yet, then when will they? Mentor, which is definitely a sprawlburb if anywhere is, grew ~750% between 1960 and 1970 and then grew modestly before starting to decline in population more recently. We can argue about exactly when we start the clock, but it clearly is beyond or closely approaching the 50 year mark and has lower, sales, income, and property tax rates than Cleveland or most of the inner ring suburbs. And I wouldn't say its infrastructure is in worse shape on average. Obviously that's just one example, but I don't think it's an exception. 

 

Even if these burbs hit a massive infrastructure repair bill in the next few years, it seems to me that they have plenty of room to raise taxes and still be competitive with the more urban areas on tax burden. 

 

I'm not trying to argue for sprawl here, this argument makes sense in theory, but doesn't seem to bear out in practice. Basically, if you're trying to convince anyone that sprawl is bad, I wouldn't use this argument... There are better arguments and I'd stick with those. Don't shoot the messenger. 

I think on the property and sales tax fronts (ones directly voted on locally) you're starting to see a change due to partisan spacial sorting. People in the core these days are far more likely to pass tax levies since a lot of Republicans have moved out of cities and been replaced with Democrats who moved away from the same small towns and suburbs the Republicans moved out to. And this continues to intensify as suburbs start to become a part of their cities and exurbs become the new suburbs.

1 hour ago, Ethan said:

I find the argument that density reduces cost to the local municipality easy to follow and logically compelling. That said, I find it to consistently clash with observed reality. If this theory was meaningfully true, we should expect to see it reflected in the tax burden placed on those households. Either it's not true, or the effect is just too small to matter compared with other factors. I explored this a bit deeper in the quoted post.

The first thing that came to mind was the fact that so many people from outside the city use the city for entertainment which in turn uses services, roads to get there etc and costs money and unless they work in the city they are not paying anything for these said services through taxes. This is also heightened in Cleveland because the borders of the city are so small.

33 minutes ago, Ethan said:

I find the argument that density reduces cost to the local municipality easy to follow and logically compelling. That said, I find it to consistently clash with observed reality. If this theory was meaningfully true, we should expect to see it reflected in the tax burden placed on those households. Either it's not true, or the effect is just to small to matter compared with other factors. I explored this a bit deeper in the quoted post.

I don't think it's that clear-cut. Part of the problem is that the cost to maintain the infrastructure from the core, roads in Cleveland, for example, (or the sewer lines in the first mile from the treatment plant (which have to be bigger than what would be needed for just the Cleveland population)) are born more by the people of Cleveland, while residents of the outlying suburbs do drive on Cleveland-maintained roadways (and send their sewage to the regional treatment plant) and don't pay the full cost of living farther away. (The outlying suburbs are predominantly only paying for maintenance of the newer and lower-capacity last-miles of the system.)

A developer can more easily buy large tracts of land to develop well outside the urban core, build only the infrastructure internal to the development, connect it to the existing network (for a small fee) and walk away, without truly paying the cost of adding on to the miles of infrastructure network that needs to be maintained (or the increased capacity costs needed at the other end). The new suburbanite is now maintaining brand-new infrastructure while adding to the burden on older infrastructure that is necessary for the new infrastructure to be functional without meaningfully adding to the cost to maintain the old infrastructure.

This is certainly an exaggeration -- I realize that we do collectively fund some things outside our immediate locale through state and federal taxes, county-level sales taxes, etc., and the person living one mile from the sewage plant pays the same rate as the person five miles from the plant -- the cost to maintain most of our infrastructure is shared. But building further and further out, we are adding many more miles of infrastructure for relatively few people to live farther and farther away (the population of greater Cleveland has not grown in decades, but has spread outward quite a bit.)

Financially, the overall community would be better off if the geographic area covered by our utility networks in 1960 was the same size today. Consider if the money spent on expanding those networks had instead been used to upgrade the older networks, not to mention if the houses in the city had been maintained, rehabbed, or even torn down and replaced with new -- rather than spread out throughout the county as they are today (and likely will be tomorrow). I don't think Cleveland would be as poor as it is if the focus had been on solving its problems rather than expending resources to run away from them.

21 hours ago, TDi said:

For example I have family in Willoughby hills where its required for each household to be on a minimum 1 acre lot. All the water lines, electrical, sewers, roads, services etc needed to just support 1 house is significant. There would be no way for that household to fund that amount of infrastructure and therefore why suburbs are heavily subsidized. The only reason the cost of living isn't significantly higher in these suburbs is because they are subsidized. Compare that to all the housing buildings that only take up a couple acres or less that house hundreds of people each on the near west side.

I don't disagree with the point you are making, but comparing 2 places isn't as simple as this, and Willoughby Hills is probably the worst example to argue this point. (as a resident trying not to be biased)

per the 2020 census: 10,019 people on 10.76 sq mi (931 people / sq mi.)

"Willoughby Hills is 72% residentially zoned which means there are 5035 acres zoned for this use. Of these 5035 acres of residential land, 2998 acres (60%) are developed."

"The second largest category of land in the City is land devoted to public or semi-public open space/recreation, (20.5%) The Cleveland Metroparks owns 990 acres in the city."

"5% of city acreage is devoted to interstate highway right-of-way for Interstate 90 and Interstate 271"

There is also no independent school system, no sidewalks, no city pool or a post office for tax $$ to have to maintain. This is for context that Willoughby Hills may seem like it isn't paying it's fair share to maintain itself, but there isn't as much infrastructure as there appears. How many cities have devoted over 20% of their total land area to parkland and green spaces?

There are also 5 apartment buildings over 10 stories, and 4 more at 9 stories tall in the city, which is obviously rare for a suburb, but helps boost the density.

Most of Willoughby Hills does not have sewers or storm drains. Most roads have ditches for stormwater and in the majority of the city, each house is required to maintain it's own septic system and per Lake County, must have it inspected and registered every year. It is a $40 yearly permit and it requires at least 1 inspection per year, which runs about $100. Also, most of the cul-de-sacs you can see on google maps are private roads who pay for their own maintenance and city snow plowing, so no cost to tax payers. No public sewer means you need an individual septic system. That takes up space, so decreasing the minimum lot size forces a sewer to be built. In areas where sewers were retroactively installed (I had family on Skyline Dr. in Richmond heights) residents were hit with a non-negotiable $15,000 bill per house back in the 1990's to have their septic systems removed and the sewer installed. This is why the 1 acre minimum is a hot topic in these types of communities.

Electric and gas companies bill all their customers a service fee to maintain and expand the system. Looking at their yearly profits, suburban sprawl isn't part of that issue.

So the point I was making here was that in rural suburban areas, the individual homeowners are responsible for more of their own utilities. When you get further out, each homeowner is responsible for their own well to provide their water, as well as potentially maintain their own natural gas tank and have to pay to have their gas delivered by truck (most of Geauga County). The added personal responsibility and liability is part of the reason why property taxes are lower.

5 hours ago, WhatUp said:

I don't disagree with the point you are making, but comparing 2 places isn't as simple as this, and Willoughby Hills is probably the worst example to argue this point. (as a resident trying not to be biased)

per the 2020 census: 10,019 people on 10.76 sq mi (931 people / sq mi.)

"Willoughby Hills is 72% residentially zoned which means there are 5035 acres zoned for this use. Of these 5035 acres of residential land, 2998 acres (60%) are developed."

"The second largest category of land in the City is land devoted to public or semi-public open space/recreation, (20.5%) The Cleveland Metroparks owns 990 acres in the city."

"5% of city acreage is devoted to interstate highway right-of-way for Interstate 90 and Interstate 271"

There is also no independent school system, no sidewalks, no city pool or a post office for tax $$ to have to maintain. This is for context that Willoughby Hills may seem like it isn't paying it's fair share to maintain itself, but there isn't as much infrastructure as there appears. How many cities have devoted over 20% of their total land area to parkland and green spaces?

There are also 5 apartment buildings over 10 stories, and 4 more at 9 stories tall in the city, which is obviously rare for a suburb, but helps boost the density.

Most of Willoughby Hills does not have sewers or storm drains. Most roads have ditches for stormwater and in the majority of the city, each house is required to maintain it's own septic system and per Lake County, must have it inspected and registered every year. It is a $40 yearly permit and it requires at least 1 inspection per year, which runs about $100. Also, most of the cul-de-sacs you can see on google maps are private roads who pay for their own maintenance and city snow plowing, so no cost to tax payers. No public sewer means you need an individual septic system. That takes up space, so decreasing the minimum lot size forces a sewer to be built. In areas where sewers were retroactively installed (I had family on Skyline Dr. in Richmond heights) residents were hit with a non-negotiable $15,000 bill per house back in the 1990's to have their septic systems removed and the sewer installed. This is why the 1 acre minimum is a hot topic in these types of communities.

Electric and gas companies bill all their customers a service fee to maintain and expand the system. Looking at their yearly profits, suburban sprawl isn't part of that issue.

So the point I was making here was that in rural suburban areas, the individual homeowners are responsible for more of their own utilities. When you get further out, each homeowner is responsible for their own well to provide their water, as well as potentially maintain their own natural gas tank and have to pay to have their gas delivered by truck (most of Geauga County). The added personal responsibility and liability is part of the reason why property taxes are lower.

I appreciate your in depth response that is all really great info I didn't think about.

But it may actually solidify my point in that even with everything you mentioned that should make it a bad example, Willoughby Hills is still typically in a annual budget shortfall and has been for quite some time now. The only thing keeping it from an even further deficit is the city receiving $1M+ in state funding/subsidies each year.

Even the inner ring cities that are dense for suburbs like Parma, Lakewood, Cleveland heights all have pretty significant budget shortfalls every year.

4 hours ago, TDi said:

Even the inner ring cities that are dense for suburbs like Parma, Lakewood, Cleveland heights all have pretty significant budget shortfalls every year.

Nope.

Not Lakewood.

https://www.lakewoodoh.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/12-31-24-City-of-Lakewood-Month-End-YTD-Financial-Report.pdf

Parma seems to be doing ok

https://www.cleveland.com/community/2024/03/parma-city-council-approves-2024-budget-with-police-department-receiving-new-tasers-cameras.html

Cleveland Heights is a mess politically right now, but also seems to be doing ok.

https://www.cleveland.com/community/2025/03/persistence-pays-off-as-cleveland-heights-council-passes-2025-budget.html

18 minutes ago, Foraker said:

Nope.

Not Lakewood.

https://www.lakewoodoh.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/12-31-24-City-of-Lakewood-Month-End-YTD-Financial-Report.pdf

Parma seems to be doing ok

https://www.cleveland.com/community/2024/03/parma-city-council-approves-2024-budget-with-police-department-receiving-new-tasers-cameras.html

Cleveland Heights is a mess politically right now, but also seems to be doing ok.

https://www.cleveland.com/community/2025/03/persistence-pays-off-as-cleveland-heights-council-passes-2025-budget.html

Yes. Directly from the approved 2025 budget.

https://www.lakewoodoh.gov/accordions/budgets/

Lakewood $32M shortfall. Same with 2023 and 2024 actuals.

Same with Cleveland Heights from their approved budget..

https://www.clevelandheights.gov/1735/2025-Budget-Information

Parma took theirs off the website for some reason but it was a similar situation.

Edited April 30Apr 30 by TDi

14 hours ago, TDi said:

Yes. Directly from the approved 2025 budget. [. . . .]

Thanks -- are these communities taking on debt to fund those deficits or are they spending from reserves?

This is all going to vary greatly suburb to suburb. Groveport and Ashville are neighbors and about the same population yet Groveport's budget is $60 million while Ashville's is like $3M since Groveport has commercial development and Ashville doesn't. It's good that we have national aggregated numbers available.

1 hour ago, GCrites said:

This is all going to vary greatly suburb to suburb. Groveport and Ashville are neighbors and about the same population yet Groveport's budget is $60 million while Ashville's is like $3M since Groveport has commercial development and Ashville doesn't. It's good that we have national aggregated numbers available.

So should we apply an income tax county-wide, and redistribute those funds on a per-capita basis?

16 minutes ago, Foraker said:

So should we apply an income tax county-wide, and redistribute those funds on a per-capita basis?

To call that politically impossible is an extreme understatement.

1 hour ago, Foraker said:

So should we apply an income tax county-wide, and redistribute those funds on a per-capita basis?

That wouldn't help this particular situation since they are in different counties and Franklin County has a lot more jobs than Pickaway.